1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information handling systems and more particularly to optimized data backup on information handling systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes, thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One issue relating to information handling systems is backing up of information stored on the information handling system. Known backup operations involve reading data stored on a disk device attached to the host through an agent installed on the host. The backup agent on the host is often required to provide context about the data that is required for restore and to ensure consistency of the data being backed up. However, with the increasing adoption of external block storage devices and the processing and transformation of data in the external storage devices prior to storing the data on media (e.g. de-duplication and compression), the known mechanism used for backup often requires that the process and transformed data be returned to its original form prior to being backed up. This operation can be resource intensive (e.g., to perform the reverse transformation on the data).
FIG. 1, labeled prior art, shows an example of a known backup environment. More specifically, the backup environment includes a single network with all devices connected to it. Configurations with multiple networks are possible with different sub-sets of the components interconnected through separate networks.
FIG. 2, labeled Prior Art, shows a block diagram of the operation of the network data management protocol (NDMP). More specifically, with a NDMP backup operation, a host 210 includes a NDMP data server 212. The host 210 is coupled to a data management application (DMA) 220 as well as to a backup device 230. The backup operation is under control of the DMA 220. During the backup process, the NDMP data server 212 creates a backup stream and sends the data to the backup device 230, with control of the backup operation being provided by the DMA 220. In addition, the NDMP data server 212 also conveys backup status and information about the backup data stream that allows the retrieval of backed up information to support a restore operation.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a mechanism by which external storage can participate in the backup process to avoid the transformation of data during the backup process. It would also be desirable to provide a mechanism by which a restore operation which restores the transformed data without returning the data to its original form.